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Please help with handle order validations!

Hi everyone,

as most of you who are interested in these things will have noticed, I have slacked considerably with my handlemaking over the past year. Between all the crappy things going on in my life and the struggle not to glide into deeper depression again, I had a hard time finding the motivation to be as consistent and organized as I should have been, even though having one foot in bankruptcy should have been a powerful motivation. In fact, a lot of the time I was closer to closing the whole thing down than trying to catch up because I just got overwhelmed by it. Part of that is also that I took on a large handle order where I 'bit more than I could chew' - or, at least, it took much more time than I expected and is still not completed. But I decided I want to make another effort to get my act together and put time and work into catching up. A friend from Germany is coming over next week for about 10 days with the main purpose of helping in the shop as much as possible. This could be the kick in the butt I need to at least get going with a lot of the handles I had agreed to take on some time ago. Here is the plan:

- Priority goes to all small repairs, replacements etc which have been sitting on my bench for too long already. Almost all of them are in the works right now.

- There are about half a dozen handles I promised to get to people fast outside of my order list, mostly additions to other orders that I thought I could make quickly or some that I had promised as 'quick deliveries' to friends. Those will be the next ones I will work on.

- The biggest part of my time will have to go into a larger order I had committed to. A lot of that order is well on its way, but it will still take a lot of time to finish. However, I could make the best use of my friend's time to help prepare all handles that were custom ordered in addition to that large order. I would work on those as much as possible, but having them prepared, i.e. the materials selected, cut to size, squared, drilled, glued etc. will make things easier even after my friend will have left again.

- For this last part, I would appreciate the help of everybody who is interested in a handle order. For those of you who have been on my list for a long time, this means I will contact you in the next days to see whether you are still interested. If you are in my list but you have not entered an email address there, please do so or contact me directly at customorders@japanesehandles.com.

- With some of you I have discussed handles over the past couple of months. If you see this but have not entered your request in the list, please do so. I will add things also, but your help would be appreciated.

- if you were thinking of ordering a handle from me, and you realize it will take some time before it will be finished, now would be a good time to also enter yourself into this list and contact me.

Please try not to delete anything. I will try and back it up regularly, but I did lose a few bits of info before...

- As I usually tell everybody: I will try to roughly follow the sequence of the orders, but I may bundle some handles together for convenience if that speeds up the process, regardless of where they are in the sequence.

- Finally, my long-term plans are unclear. I hate my day job and I am currently applying all over the place again. If I manage to find another position, this will start around August with the academic year. Therefore, I do not make any plans beyond the end of June right now. If I find a job somewhere else, I have no idea whether it will be possible to continue with the handle making - there are currently no jobs on my island, so I would have to move somewhere and see what I can do there. If I don't find a job, I may still pack my things and move somewhere cheaper around that same time.